Contact Management vs. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Monday, July 5 2010

There was an interesting post on LinkedIn recently where a highly experienced ex-CRM professional (now a Sales 2.0 consultant) rightly emphasised that the contact manager or CRM system you chose was irrelevant; it’s what you do with it that’s important.

Also, we’re seeing products like LinkedIn and Facebook offering more and more CRM functionality with a direct interface to Outlook (via the Social Connector which is available from Outlook 2003 onwards), negating the need for full-blown CRM.

Even more interestingly, you only have to look at the reports from leading market research organisations to see that you have a 50% chance of failing in your CRM implementation.

So the question has to be; where is all this heading?

Here at virtualCONTACT we’re taking a back to basics approach in delivering a system that is extremely easy to use, integrates with leading technology providers, and allows you to target your prospects and customers better than ever before, delivering measurable results to your business.

What we offer:
• Very simple web based Contact Management
• Advanced Sales Tools
• Lead Assessment Tools
• Sales Forecasting
• Lead Scoring & Prospect Profiling
• Seamless Integration with Outlook/LinkedIn/Facebook
• Seamless Integration with MailChimp
• Seamless Integration with Marketing Automation
• Extensive Reporting

What’s coming:
• Automated Quotations
• Seamless Integration with SalesForce, Dynamics and Sugar
• Highly graphical Prospect/Lead Profiling Tool

virtualCONTACT offers a no risk solution; there’s no complicated setup and it accesses your data in Outlook instantly, so you’ll have the whole of your sales team using it effectively in next to no time. And once you do, you can then make a far more informed decision on whether or not to move to full blown CRM.

Don’t forget, the BBC recently said we’re at the start of the Internet Revolution, which includes the Data Revolution (easy access highly relevant information). As with any revolution, everything changes and changes fast; because virtualCONTACT is built on the latest technology from Microsoft, you can be assured that you are best placed to benefit from these changes.

If you’re going to make the investment in CRM, please be sure that you fully understand what is required from you and your team as well as your CRM vendor.

virtualCONTACT Demo Click here for our '5 Minute Demo'.